Temptation
by RainbowSerenity
Summary: /Soriku fluff/ Riku had never really cared for Valentine's Day, but a few days beforehand, he starts getting mysterious messages that seem to mean nothing. But then again, isn't it the person behind the messages that really counts?


_Pretty late Valentine's Day fluff._ _I waited on posting this, because I knew there would be a buttload of V-day fics on that dreaded day, but I hadn't meant to wait this long. Oh, well. xD_

_This was written for wind-borne at LiveJournal, for a little secret Valentine exchange. This was the fic I wrote for her. Prepare for massive amounts of tooth-rotting fluff. ;D_

**Temptation**

Valentine's Day had never really been a big deal among the people of Destiny Islands. If anything, it was more of a holiday for the adults; an excuse for wives to make their husbands take them to that one nice restaurant on the main island.

Riku in particular had never really cared for it. It was far too girly for his tastes, and was better suited towards silly girls like Selphie and ladies men like Tidus. He never even ate chocolate or anything on the day, and he'd always figured that Sora was pretty much the same way.

That is, until he walked into the brunet's home one afternoon, five days before that dreaded V-day, only to find him surrounded by literally dozens and dozens of bags of candy.

"Uhh...Sora? What are you doing?"

"Riku!" Sora started coughing on whatever he'd been chomping on and whammed a fist into his chest to dislodge it from his throat. "Ugh...what are you doing here?"

"The same thing I do every single Saturday. Remember, coming over to your house, stealing some of your mom's pancakes, and then kicking your butt in video games?"

"Oh, right."

"Now the question is, Sora, what are _you_ doing?" Riku raised a silver eyebrow.

"Umm..." Sora glanced around at the dozens of bags of candy he was surrounded by, most of them open. There were wrappers everywhere—it was pretty much a neat-nick's nightmare. "Nothing."

"Sora, that's not _nothing_."

Blue eyes rolled in irritation. "Riku, don't worry about it. My candy wrappers are none of your business."

"..."

"Want some pancakes?"

"Hell yeah."

But even after Riku had drowned three of Sora's mother's awesome pancakes in Mrs. Buttersworth and eaten them with the eagerness of a starving man, and then proceeded to kick Sora's butt in various video games, he couldn't help but remember the fact that Sora had been _blushing_ when he'd been staring at those candy bags.

--

_**Smile. People will wonder what you've been up to.**_

That was the message Riku got on some kind of shiny paper that was taped to his bathroom mirror the next morning. He'd just been innocently squeezing toothpaste onto his awesome yellow toothbrush, too bleary-eyed to even _look_ in the mirror, and then there it was, practically blinding him.

After he'd blinked the muck out of his eyes enough to read the message, he had to quirk an eyebrow. Who the heck had done this? His mother? Probably not. She wouldn't voluntarily put mess in her house. His father? Even more unlikely. He just wasn't the leave-random-messages-on-the-bathroom-mirror type. If anything, he'd be leaving them in the toilet.

Okay, _ew_.

Back to the random message.

Alright, if his parents hadn't left it...who had?

Riku plucked the freakishly shiny paper from the small piece of tape that had been holding it to the mirror. He stared at it for a second. _Smile_. That word seemed to jump up at him the most, for whatever reason.

It continued jumping up at him, even after he'd pocketed the foil and started walking towards the island's edge. It persisted on sticking to his mind even after he'd taken his spot sitting on that old, bent palm tree and finding out with some shock that Sora was already there, leaning against the trunk with his arms behind his head.

"Hey, Riku," he greeted. "What's up?"

"Not a whole lot." The silver-haired teen glanced down at the brunet, and noticed Sora had a small, secretive little...whoa, was that a _smirk_ on his face!? "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Sora stretched his arms up and cracked his back, that mysterious little smirk morphing into a satisfied grin. "Hey, wanna race? It's been awhile. I bet I can beat you now."

"Che," Riku scoffed. "In your dreams. I'll never chase after you."

Sora gave a funny little half-smile. _Smile_. "I wouldn't be too sure about that." He paused, then suddenly took off at breakneck speed past Riku. "Told yaaaaaaaa!"

"Hey, wait a second!" The older boy leaped off the tree, his long legs automatically running to try and catch up to the brunet. "Cheater!"

The only response was the sound of their laughter blocking out all other sounds on the beach.

--

_**You're allowed to do nothing.**_

Riku didn't think he could've gotten such a message at a better time. All he really _wanted_ to do was absolutely nothing. Wasn't it an unspoken law not to pile students with mountains of work on a Monday? Apparently not. Ugh.

But then he'd found that message on the same kind of foil as the other one, tucked inside his dumb day planner he always used to write down homework assignments. It was as though whoever had been leaving him these messages wanted him to take a load off and just forget about this dumb pile of homework.

...Yeeeah, like he could. It was pretty hard to forget about a huge mass of books and papers when they were staring you in the face.

However, the only paper Riku could stare at was the one with that message. Who was leaving him these things? He could pretty much _really_ rule out his parents now, because they never touched his school stuff at all. If they did...well, nobody really wanted to go down that road.

It was probably Kairi. She was definitely the leave-random-messages-for-a-friend-in-their-homework-planner-thingy type. But then _that_ meant she would've had to been in his bathroom at some point...

Okay, ew. He really didn't want to think about Kairi in his bathroom.

He didn't really think it was any of his other friends—none of them were close enough, except of course, for Sora.

But _why_ would Sora leave him random, inspiring messages? And how?

A sudden _whump_ on his desk made Riku blink and look up in surprise. Wakka was standing there with a fist on the desk, smirking in the crazy Wakka-like way.

"Wakka? What are you doing?"

"Trying to wake you up. The lunch bell rang like a minute ago, ya?"

"It did?" Huh. Riku blinked again. He really _was_ totally out of it. Stupid never-ending pile of homework.

"Ya. I'm gonna go on ahead and catch up with Tidus and the others, alright?"

"Yeah. Okay." Wakka was the only friend Riku had any classes with, but their whole school was so small that all of the grades were able to eat lunch together—the only time Riku was able to see Sora the entire school day.

Wakka went up ahead out of the classroom, muttering something about how Tidus had _better_ save him some nachos. Hmph. Those nachos were looong gone by now, if a minute had gone by since the bell rang.

Riku tucked the piece of foil into his homework planner. He'd think about it later.

Well, of course that was his intention, but it didn't stop him from thinking about the message all the way towards the walk outside, where the group of friends usually had lunch. All thoughts flew out of his mind, however, when he saw Sora. The brunet tended to do that to him.

"Hey, Riku," he greeted with a grin. "Fall asleep during class or something?"

"If only," the silver-haired teen grunted. "Maybe then all these honors classes I've got would be useful."

"You're gonna end up working yourself to death." Sora scooted himself closer to Riku when the other teen had sat down. "Wanna play video games and blow off homework after school?"

"I can't. I've got research to do for that history paper, plus all of those lit sentences, and don't even get me _started_ on the algebra stuff..."

"Pleeease?"

Leave it to Sora to bring on the Puppydog Eyes. Riku took one look at those big baby blues and sighed. After all, he _was_ allowed to do nothing. "Fine. My place?"

"Mine's closer."

"So? The extra exercise will do you good."

"Meanie." Sora stuck his tongue out, but inched even closer to Riku until their knees were touching. Neither of them commented on it, but neither of them moved, either.

--

_**You know what? You look good in red.**_

Riku couldn't take it anymore. "Kairi? Have you been sending these to me?" He shoved the new foil message he'd gotten that morning into the redhead's face.

Kairi raised an eyebrow. "No, because you look horrible in red. No offense."

"None taken." Riku sighed and stared at the message. "I've been getting these for the past few days, each other with a different message. They're always on this same, shiny paper. I'd ask Sora, but he's been avoiding me all day.

The redhead bit her lip. "Lemme see that." She took the paper from Riku and turned it over, suddenly grinning to herself. "Riku, this is a candy wrapper."

"A candy wrapper?"

"Yeah, for Crow Promises chocolates. They're really good. Every wrapper comes with a cute message like this one. You've gotten more of these?"

"Yeah. So they're candy wrappers?"'

"Yup."

"Guess I know who my culprit is, then..."

"How'd you know it's Sora?"

Riku laughed. "When I went over to his house on Saturday, he was pretty much up to his knees in bags of candy. I don't really get what he's trying to do here, though..."

Kairi lightly smacked his arm. "Isn't it obvious? I think it's really sweet. Everybody knows you guys have liked each other for _ages_."

"Wha—what!?" Riku's face flushed. "How--?"

"Oh please, Riku. We're not blind and deaf. I always thought you'd be the first one to make a move, though..."

"I was just waiting for the right moment!"

"And what better moment than Valentine's Day, which is tomorrow, might I remind you?"

"...Aw, crap."

"You'd better sweep him off his feet or I'll remove yours." She waved. "I'm late. See ya later!"

"Yeah...later." Riku stared down at the candy wrapper. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was such an _idiot_. Why couldn't he have gotten it into his head that maybe Sora liked him like _that_ too? Was he really that dense when it came to romance? But Sora was supposed to be the naïve one!

Arguh, stupid holiday. It messed up everything.

Although it _did_ have its advantages...

Riku grinned suddenly, and tucked the wrapper in his pocket. Hopefully every bag of these chocolate came with different messages, because he didn't know how many he'd be able to stomach.

--

Valentine's Day, the holiday that wasn't a very big deal on Destiny Islands, had arrived.

You wouldn't know it by looking at the school, though. A few of the long-term couples had gotten really lovey-dovey in front of their classmates, and a bunch were sporting flowers in their hair, but that was it. The only real difference was the sugar high Tidus was on (finally, it wasn't Selphie for a change) and the mysterious absence of Sora.

Oh, the brunet was in school, alright. Riku had seen that spiky mass of hair in groups of students traveling from class to class, but he hadn't stopped to talk to the silver-haired boy all day, and hadn't been in their usual place at lunch.

Now it was the end of the school day, and Riku hadn't spoken one word to Sora during it, which was pretty much a record. He began his usual walk home, his steps feeling oddly heavier with Sora tailing behind him and talking about great everything was. Hmph, brat.

Kairi wasn't even around, either. She claimed she had 'something to do' and had walked in the opposite direction with Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka—not to mention his stomach was still cramping from all the chocolate he'd eaten last night. Nope, he was totally alone.

That is, until he found a certain kind of candy wrapper taped to his front door in plain sight.

_**Go to your special place.**_

Special place? Did Sora mean...

Riku immediately dropped his bag and headed down the road, up to the shore, and to the little island he and Sora were always on, with its old, bent, palm tree. He noted with disappointed that there was no one around.

His heart sank. Maybe he'd gotten his hopes up too high. Or the meeting place was wrong. Or—

"You look funny when you think too hard, you know that?"

Riku's head snapped up and around, only to find that Sora was behind him. He smirked a bit, his heart suddenly feeling light again.

"Yeah, well, maybe you should try thinking sometime. I've heard it's good for you."

"So are apples, but you don't see me eating one a day."

"Heh, heh." Riku chuckled and reached into his pocket. "I have something for you."

Sora's eyes lit up. "A present?"

"Kind of..." Riku held out his hand. In it was the same kind of candy wrapper, one like the dozens he had thrown in the trash last night because the message wasn't right. But now it was loud and clear:

_**When two hearts race, both win.**_

Riku leaned closer. "Mine's still winning."

"Nuh-uh." The brunet shook his head. "And you're not getting the last word in, either." He reached into one of his many pockets and pulled out a nearly identical piece of foil.

_**Temptation is fun...giving in is even better.**_

"I don't mind giving in if there's something good on the other side," Riku said. His arms wound around Sora's waist.

"I'd say there is," Sora replied, grinning right before their lips met.

Riku still didn't think Valentine's Day was such a big deal. However, now he could definitely see what all the fuss was about.

Giving in had never tasted so sweet.

--

_I'm a mushball, kthxbai. xD What can I say? I'm a fluffernutter._

Those candy wrappers are based off of Dove Promises, which are really, really, really good chocolates that have some kinda weird inspirational message on them like the ones used in the fic. Actually, I got all of the messages on chocolates I'd been eating when I wrote this. Mwhahaha. The 'temptation' one is my favorite. –wink wink-

_**Reviews **would be totally sweet, like a cupcake! And who doesn't like cupcakes? ...Exactly. _


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